Redesigning Our Future, Designing Your Future

07/17/17 by Juanita Teschner

The
keynote speaker at Catawba College’s National Environmental Summit took a
slight turn from the event’s theme: Redesigning Our Future.

Heather
White, president and CEO of Yellowstone Forever, the nonprofit partner of
Yellowstone National Park, told the high school students Tuesday night to spend
time being deliberate and thinking about a vision for their future.
“Redesigning our future is what we
need to do collectively,” she said, “but how can you design your own future?”

She outlined
three elements in that individual design:

1)
Conduct informational interviews.
“Talk to people,” she said. “Gather information. Collect stories. Meet with
people who are doing the things you think are interesting.”

2)
Write it down. “All the research
says if you write down what your vision is and where you want to go, the
chances of achieving it are much, much higher.”

3)
Have faith in yourself. “You have
more knowledge right now than any other generation that has ever walked the
earth, from physics to math to technology to health to environmental science,”
she said. “You have the power to create the solutions that we need, to address
all of these really difficult environmental problems.”

White noted
that they will have many opportunities but with opportunity comes
responsibility. “Think of all the people who came before you to create the
opportunities you have now,” she said. “Honor them by making a difference.”

Connections
with people are critical to success, according to White. She encouraged the
teens to seek help from others. “Jobs are all about people. It’s not a
computer; it’s not an algorithm that’s going to get your job. It’s people.”

Mentors are
happy to help, White said: “The more people help you, the more they want to
help you.”

The students
asked about what they should study to enter a particular field. Both White and
professionals from Rocky Mountain Institute, who are also serving as
instructors at the summit, agreed that a particular course of study isn’t that
important. “It’s not about what you study as an undergraduate, per se,” she
said. “It’s about being open and having a clear plan about what you want to do.”

She
and Dr. John Wear, executive director of the Center for the Environment, talked
about John Muir, a Scottish-American naturalist and early advocate for the
preservation of wilderness in the United States. Wear quoted Muir: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in
and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

White and Wear
encouraged the students to carve out quiet time – “places to play in and pray
in” – to figure out what kind of life they want to create.

There’s no formula for success, according to
White. “You don’t have to go to this school and study this thing and be in this
percentage of the class,” she said. “You have to create that space for yourself
to figure out what you want and be true to yourself, and it will work out.”